Germantown, December 14, 2005— 21st Century Highways: Innovative Solutions to America’s Transportation Needs was published this week by the Maryland Public Policy Institute, in partnership with the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Launched in 1956 to build America’s interstate highway system, today’s federal highway program suffers from an identity crisis. In Chapter 9, “Maryland Transportation: Problems and Solutions,” Peter Samuel examines highway transportation and mass transit in Maryland.

In Maryland, public perception of the state’s transportation problems usually centers on the supposed problem of too little money, says Samuel. Instead, “the problem lies with misdirection of tax monies by those with non-transportation agendas and a failure to tap users’ fees and adapt transport programs to the needs and budgets of users.”

The results are undue congestion and subsequent cost; a disproportionate share of mass transit into D.C. rather than to the northern Virginia and Maryland suburbs; and misdirection of public resources to an under-used rail system. Entrepreneurial management can change all this.

Peter Samuel is editor of TOLLROADSnews, adjunct scholar with MPPI, and research fellow with the Reason Public Policy Institute. Peter Samuel is joined by transportation experts from the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Reason Foundation, the Urban Mobility Corporation, University of California’s School of Policy, Planning, and Development, among others. 21st Century Highways is available for purchase at www.mdpolicy.org.

Other chapters in 21st Century Highways:
• A Short History of the Modern Federal-Aid Highway Program
• The Social Benefits and Costs of the Automobile
• Performance-Based Transportation Programs
• 21st Century Toll Roads
• Private-Sector Participation in Surface Transportation in the United States
• Will a Bigger Role for States Improve Transportation Policy Performance?